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Day/Night scope use for hog hunting.
Okie743
Member Posts: 2,736 ✭✭✭✭
Anyone had any hands on experience with Day/Night scope use and IR illuminators for hog hunting at around 100 yards and less, 150 max yards?
Is ATN a good choice or any others in same price range. ($800 or less)
Will be mainly watching a hog feeder at night at 100 yards and less from a blind, but also want to use the scope in daylight on the same bolt action 243 thru 30:06 caliber areas. (maybe even a 223 caliber bolt action rifle.
I've been looking at ATN 3-14 and a IR illuminator but no hands on experience with such and know nothing about such except I'm not yet interested in thermal imaging.
Comments
Had two ATN night vision scopes. I was a glutton for punishment. I would not recommend them. Maybe a higher dollar than you suggestion but the only way I would buy one now is trying it out first .
I seem to remember gb forum member bpost had a lot of trouble with his ATN scope. I'll try to find his posts on the matter.
Here it is:
https://forums.gunbroker.com/discussion/1893727/atn-products-have-been-a-dismal-failure
Avoid ATN.
Look at Plusar. will break the bank but as always you get what you pay for.
I got the sightmark digital night vision scope.
https://sightmark.com/collections/wraith
I have not had good luck with the ATN the one I have has bent sent back 4 times and their customer service is slow. The Sightmark wraith is better but only rated up to 308 and is pretty heavy
These guys have been really helpful and they handle both sightmark and Pulsar
I posted this in bposts response before..but doing it again... too funny
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkb97wR66JU&ab_channel=GeoffreyHettel
Sightmark Wraith. Got one mounted on my AR15. Works day/night, a bit heavy, but with tripod it is deadly out to 125 yards.
I suspect ATN is really struggling, wanting customers. Maybe their CS dept is getting the message.
I visited their website back in Jan and posted on here asking about ATN and night vision scope recommendations.
I have X'ed them off due to poor CS complaints
BUT
ever since then my JUNK mailbox has emails from ATN about every day.
They sure are trying to butter me up. (until I commit)
As someone that learned the hard way stick with sightmark.
Go to the link above they have everything in stock except the Mini which is the one I have ordered
I hunt hogs regularly in day light and at night. I have green Hog lights that cost about $30.00 that mount to the feeder. Some are motion activated and some have a photo cell. I can see fine at night. I currently use a Kahles on my 6.5-06 but in your price range I recommend a Burris Euro Diamond with a lighted reticle. I have this on my AR. Get at least a 50mm optical and a 30mm tube for better light collection. The lit reticle helps under the lights because the hogs look black and you can loose the cross hairs we you place them on the hog. T
UPdate:
After several reviews I decided to go with the Pulsar Digex C50.
I got it from Outdoor Legacy (good people to deal with)
I had to wait over a year for them to get in stock.
It has a learning experience but is really good for Day/night vision.
It's a heavy scope and when placed onto a Post 64 Winchester 70 30;06 the gun weighs about 11.2 lbs. If the gun were a bull barrel with no taper the Pulsar C50 would not fit with super High rings
I went with the Leupold 2 piece bases, QR rings (30MM) and had to go with the super high rings due to the Pulsar C50 scopes front being 78MM total OD. My regular Leupold 4x12x40, (total OD=46mm) 1 inch scope is set in medium rings and I can easily swap scopes when needed and gun retains close to zero at 100 yards.
The super high rings on the Pulsar Digex N/V C50 are ok and no neck stretch due to the rifle having a nice standard cheekpiece stock.
Update - I used the sightmark on a couple of hog hunts and then I had Kasey sell it for me. Every time I would shoot a hog the screen in the scope would go white for 15 seconds or more. Just long enough so you couldn’t see which way the hog went after you shot. I didn’t like that and you definitely couldn’t get a second shot off. I went to a Pulsar thermal scope and everything is good now.
gishaw: What model thermal did you get?
When I first started considering I was about ready to pull the trigger on ATN and or sightmark and seen several bad reviews that were what you experienced, so I just waited until Joe got done with some kissing (asx whispering) and got CHINA to building and selling vendors some chips for auto's and scopes. Shameful.
I considered thermal but I also hunt late evening daylight is why I choose the N/V. I wanted to go daylight to night without changing scopes or guns.
I wanted to have instant view when going from late daylight to dark, but with the QR rings and changing scopes might have worked ok??? Would have to carry one of the scopes in a backpack for changing.
I'm considering a thermal monocular so as I do not have to scan at night with the digital scope. Gun weighs 11.2 lbs with the scope (scope is heavy and bulky at almost 3 lbs) and not user friendly for doing quick scans and turning the scope off and on between scans.
Anyone had any experience with handheld thermal monoculars for doing quick scans out to about 150 yards on hog/coyotes. Just need to get a heat detect and then ID if a good target with the scoped rifle before sending.
If you can mount your IR light under the muzzle and close to the end it helps a lot with the white out Caldwell makes a Picatinny mount that attaches to the sling swivel that works pretty good on a bolt action rifle
savage170:
This C50 came with a variable intensity IR knob and a clamp that allows clamping to the scope's 30mm tube and do not have any issues with white out yet. The IR is easily aimed different directions slightly off to the side if it's too white at close range. It can be easily removed for Day time use of the scope so as to reduce bulk of the scope and make it more user friendly during day use and it's easily re-installed and the IR aimed.
I was lucky that the clamp on had enough room on the tube along with the front scopes ring.
I noticed Pulsar had a optional picatinny rail for the IR and was wondering why for, etc.
thanks good information
John, mine is the pulsar thermeon 2 and I have t he pulsar hand held monocular. Both are good to 2000 ft.
I bought a SightMark after reading good reviews. Maybe I'm just overly cranky but have not had much goodness from this scope.
1: The illuminator(basically a red lens flashlite) is absolutely worthless unless there's nothing in front of the scope. No tall grass. No overhanging branches. NOTHING. If there's anything at all, the 'illuminator' just causes a glare.
2: You must have some other device to find/locate your target since you can't just look through the scope full time. If you do look through the scope and then try to look outside the scope, you're blind.
3: The thing literally eats batteries like candy. Maybe a car battery in a backpack or a cord running from a vehicle would keep it running longer?
4: It's so heavy that a tripod is a must have. Trying to change settings or make adjustments while holding the Wraith mounted rifle in shooting position is impossible w/o a tripod or other support.
Fog or light mist of rain will also cause a Illuminator glare out when using NV.
I watch 'FurTakers' videos. Seems the best scenario for using thermal or NV is a wide open landscape with nothing but bare farm land. Even with hundreds of acres on which to hunt, I've not found anyplace where the NV works as advertised.
In every video I've watched critter location is done using a separate handheld mono/binocular device. There's another $???(?) added to the scope.
I'm just totally disappointed with the Wraith, it's performance, and the 'night hunting' concept. Varmints in my area aren't dumb enough to apporach so much movement even in the dark. Maybe hogs are dumber or something?
Thermal rifle scopes info:
Dec/Jan 2025 Game and Fish SOUTH magazine has good article about using and hunting with thermal scopes. (they have east, west, north. The article is in the south magazine
Pg. 52, NIGHT SIGHTINGS by Bethany Beathard (take advantage of thermal imaging to dispatch wild hogs after dark,) pg 52-56, describes why thermal better vs N/V day night scopes and general description of the scopes menu selections, optics options vs budget.
Magazine also has a separate article about Burris's BTC35 V3 thermal that fits onto end of regular rifle scope for thermal hunting . Pg 76
I sub to the magazine is why I seen the article. Not sure of the subs price, probably about $10 per year.
Their website is GAFMAG.com.
link to view the SOUTH front page. https://www.gameandfishmag.com/magazine/current-issue/386467#top
Anyone interested might see if they have a digital download at the link to view/read the article or contact them about such??????
night vision you can set up a gun for 1000.00
Thermal scopes that are any good will start around 3500 . My pulsar thermal scope was just short of 6,000. and the hand held monocular was another 5,000.00. Expensive toys but good up to 2000 yards each. I even use them in the woods so open fields are not a must.: I had a hand held Flur monocular that was only good in open conditions up to 150 yards. I gave that one away. Basic rule. You get what you pay for. Going cheap is not all ways the best.
gishaw:
You say: I even use them in the woods so open fields are not a must.
Have you ever used your IR's in the day or night to look for a wounded or dead animal that ran out of sight into woods or tall grass? (instead of trying to follow a blood trail for instance)
I and my Cousin who lives in Iowa bought Wraith NV scopes 2 years ago. His two Sons also bought different brand NV scopes for night hunting coyotes. Their brand wasn't any better than Wraith. This year, both Sons bought thermals (about $3500-4K each). I have no idea of their calling skills or whatever but let's just say they haven't had much success even with the thermal units.
Coyotes in populated areas just aren't as dumb as those in 'wide open spaces'.
"Have you ever used your IR's in the day or night to look for a wounded or dead animal"
We used an IR equipped drone trying to locate a wounded deer in November. Maybe a higher quality unit would work better but realistically, the drone was worthless due to the scattered trees preventing low level flight. At 100' tree top level, all we saw was a jumble of light/dark blotches. Well into the second battery, the drone lost it's avoidance capabilities and stuck itself in a treetop. Absolute and total FAILURE—plus a damaged drone.
There just so much of this 'technology' that may work well under best case scenarios and is a dismal failure the other 90% of the time.
yes, to locate a hog shot at night in a swamp, nothing in the day.